INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
02.24.2026
February 24th, 2026
Greetings! As the war in Ukraine enters its 5th year today – actually, it goes back to February 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, then illegally annexed it in March –Ukraine war fatigue is setting in in Europe & the U.S.
The evidence?
No one even bats an eye when North Korean troops – not just individuals, but entire formations – fight alongside Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Massive Russian ballistic missile & drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector, critical infrastructure and residential neighborhoods continue unabated on a near-daily basis. Yet they barely crack the news headlines.
Russian war crimes & crimes against humanity are being normalized––two heart-breaking realities the White House willfully ignores to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin’s negotiators at the table.
Ditto any talk of Russian restitution for their war crimes. Holding the Kremlin accountable for the damages they are inflicting on Ukraine day in & day out is not – outrageously, in our view – even a secondary Team Trump talking point.
But is it war fatigue, or only an inability to see a just end to the war?
It’s both.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that Putin believes he is winning & is convinced he can conquer all of the Donbas in 18 to 24 months. But the Kremlin needs more bodies & is preparing options for “limited military conscription” & “limited, rolling involuntary reserve call-ups” to generate the necessary combat power.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told Agence France-Presse, “You can’t say that we’re losing the war … The question is whether we will win.” Later, he told Piers Morgan – a British talk show host – that Ukraine would not cede territory to Russia or withdraw from land it currently controls.
Then last Friday, Ukrainian National Guard Commander, Brigadier General Oleksandr Pivnenko, defiantly told BBC that “A victory for Ukraine in military terms is, of course, to take its territories … I understand that it can take several decades – it doesn’t matter.”
Fear of Russia & Ukraine devolving into another forever war tends to lower the enthusiasm of supporting countries.
That can’t be allowed to happen. If it does, then it plays into the hands of Putin & his generals who otherwise can’t find a pathway to victory on the battlefield.
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Or is the war just over-reported?
Maybe, but more likely a genuine loss of interest that is competing with other news events of the day whether they be Cuba, the upcoming State of the Union address or the flare-up of tensions between China & Japan over Taiwan.
Significantly, the potential for a regime-changing war with Iran directly involving the U.S. military, which could affect oil supplies, sits atop that list.
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It is all the above. Just as Putin intended.
A deliberate by-product of his war of attrition. Drag out the war, drag out the negotiations, blame Ukraine, blame NATO, falsely declare Moscow is winning on the battlefield, & then find a willing dupe– think Steve Witkoff – to echo his message knowing that the West & its 24-hour news cycle attention span will likely move on to the next big story.
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But while the U.S., NATO & European Union may have grown weary of the ‘same old story,’ Ukraine is digging in & continues to fight Russia for their very survival with their own weapon systems.
As Gen. George S. Patton said, “When in doubt – attack.” And that’s exactly what Zelensky & his generals are doing.
They changed the narrative & in doing so Kyiv regained the initiative by taking the fight directly to Russia at the intersection of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts in southern Ukraine.
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Ukraine recently introduced their FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile into the equation, which Russian air defenses seemingly have no answer for. They parlayed that with a ground offensive Zelensky says liberated 300 kilometers in an “unspecified area in southern Ukraine” – likely in the Dnipropetrovsk-Zaporizhzhia Oblast according to an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
As documented in the Kyiv Post, over the past week Ukraine struck targets deep within the Russian interior & Crimea. While Kyiv’s top strategic goal remains the destruction of facilities & the delivery platforms that finance Putin’s war – oil refineries, shadow fleet vessels, etc. – they are also going after targets that bring death & destruction upon Ukraine.
Waiting – hoping – for the ‘coalition of the willing’ to deliver a No-Fly Zone, or for the U.S. & NATO countries to resupply NASAMS & Patriot missiles directly or through the NATO Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, is not an option.
The war can no longer be over the skies of Ukraine. Shooting down individual missiles & drones isn’t enough. Rather, Ukraine’s firepower must be directed at the sources of Russia’s strikes deep behind enemy lines.
Kyiv must not afford sanctuary to missile & drone launchers, munitions storage & production facilities, munitions transport vehicles, or the airfields from which aircraft launch to strike targets in Ukraine.
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Early Saturday morning, Flamingo cruise missiles struck the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in the Udmurt Republic – located approximately 1,300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border – a facility known to produce Iskander & Oreshnik ballistic missiles.
On February 11th & 12th, Ukraine struck a “missile, ammunition and an explosives arsenal near … Kotluban in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast.” The facility belonged to Russia’s Main Missile & Artillery Directorate – one of their largest ammunition storage facilities.
Earlier, in late January, Ukraine hit the Kapustin Yar test range, located in Russia’s Astrakhan Region, which had been used by Russia to launch Oreshnik ballistic missiles at Ukraine.
Ukrainian Special Operations Forces are hunting Iskander mobile launchers & storage facilities in Crimea using FP-2 drones to destroy them. Last week Ukraine destroyed a storage facility in Pasichne.
That is reminiscent of SCUD hunting operations conducted by U.S. Special Forces during Operation Desert Shield/Storm in western Iraq.
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Interesting fact: Iskander & Oreshnik ballistic missiles have been deployed to Belarus, making them less vulnerable to Ukrainian interdiction. They are also now closer to NATO’s eastern flank be it Poland or the Baltic States.
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With help from Elon Musk, Russian troops in Ukraine lost access to Starlink. The effect? According to Russian military bloggers: “frustration and communications problems on the front.” The absence of Starlink crippled their attack drone capability as well, creating opportunities on the battlefield for Ukraine to take advantage of – 300 kilometers thus far.
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But that offers little relief for Ukrainian families on the receiving end of endless nights of ballistic missile and drone attacks. According to Zelensky, “This week alone, Russia launched more than 1,300 attack drones against Ukraine, over 1,400 guided aerial bombs, and 96 missiles of various types, including dozens of ballistic ones.”
Coupled with the Ukrainian winter – the coldest in over a decade – Putin’s weaponization of winter is creating undue hardship but has not broken the will of the Ukrainian people.
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Spring is coming.
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The Biden Administration’s strategy provided Ukraine ‘just enough’ military aid to defend itself. Team Trump’s cutting military aid to Ukraine by 99% in 2025 forced Kyiv into a defensive – survival – posture, thereby ceding the initiative to Russia.
But Ukraine held.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies reported during that time period, “Russian forces advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 meters per day … slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century.”
The result?
A World War I-like stalemate.
Through their actions, both the Biden & Trump administrations – ironically – have prolonged the war, which has directly contributed to Ukraine war fatigue.
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The Ukrainian people need relief. Zelensky is looking to relieve the pressure. For now, at least, he is achieving this with Ukrainian-made weapons.
Yet uncertainty causes indecision. 2025 brought too much of that. 2026 must be strategically & tactically different.
Success breeds success, and a change in momentum changes perspective, which can overcome Ukraine fatigue.
More succinctly – as seen recently in the south of Ukraine – winning solves a lot of problems.
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Kyiv must make believers out of those who simply see no end to the war. They need tangible results. Just producing more Russian casualties is not enough – 1,261,420 to date. For Putin, this is a meaningless metric. He will just conscript, mobilize, purchase, & recruit more foreigners to fill Russian uniforms.
The only metric he is interested in is terrain. How many meters did his army advance today? How many kilometers is he closer to the capital city of Kyiv or the port of Odesa? When can Putin have his parade?
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There is no way around this, Ukraine needs additional – and sustained – support to defeat Russia. To do so means protecting their population & stopping the flow of Russian forces & their equipment into their country.
A tired message – maybe – but Ukraine war fatigue will not stop Russia in their pursuit to eradicate Kyiv. It will only embolden them.
More pro-Ukraine rallies, like the one in Washington, D.C. last week, are needed to keep the message alive.
Lose interest – lose Ukraine. Lose Ukraine, lose security in Eastern Europe. It really is that simple. They – and we – have said this out loud repeatedly.
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There is reason to take heart. Putin – once again – is rolling out what we call his ‘nuclear’ teddy bear. Every time things go south for his army in Ukraine, he raises – like clockwork – the specter of nuclear war.
He did it again today accusing Ukraine of attempting to get a nuke at best or a dirty bomb at worst from the United Kingdom & France.
As we’ve often urged, don’t fall for Putin’s nuclear bluffing. It isn’t a sign of strength. It’s an admission of Russian weakness.
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Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social. Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.